Basting is a common cooking technique when preparing large pieces of meat such as a turkey, a chicken, roasts or the like. Such foods will become dry if they are not basted several times during the cooking process. Common basting liquids such as melted butter, liquid fat, meat drippings or liquid such as a stock are usually spooned over the food or applied with a conventional bulb-type siphon.
While such methods undoubtedly work, they do have some disadvantages. First, the chef may easily forget about the next basting interval causing an entire meal to be ruined. Secondly, the door of the oven must be opened to perform the basting process, thus causing uneven temperature regulation and increased cooking time. Finally, and perhaps most important, the basting process is not continuous in the sense that it is only performed during certain time intervals. This may allow the meat dry out between consecutive bastings which will permanently negatively affect its overall taste.
Various attempts have been made to provide food basting systems. Examples of these attempts can be seen by reference to several U.S. patents. U.S. Pat. No. 1,712,242, issued in the name of Zimmermann, describes a self-basting and turning roaster which enables a user to rotate a foodstuff within the roaster in order to evenly apply a basting fluid without having to remove the lid of the apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,083, issued in the name of Caliva, describes an automatic food roasting and basting device which provides a fire box with a rotating spit and a basting unit located above the spit. The Caliva device can be utilized with a belt or pulley and a separate motor to rotate the spit and basting unit in order to apply a basting liquid while rotating a spitted foodstuff.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,582,745, issued in the name of Northern, describes a self-basting cooking apparatus including an external pump and a container of a basting liquid which is automatically periodically pumped into the cooking apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,796,219, issued in the name of Rubin, describes an automatic basting apparatus for use with an oven including a pump apparatus disposed outside of the oven and a transparent reservoir for monitoring the fluid level without opening the oven.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives, each of these references suffer from one (1) or more of the aforementioned disadvantages. Many such devices require lengthy installation or setup. Also, many such devices require manual intervention on a periodic basis to enact the basting process. Furthermore, many such devices utilize an intermittent basting process which may allow the meat dry out between consecutive bastings. In addition, many such devices are not suited for indoor use. Moreover, many such devices must be installed in a permanent location and cannot be easily repositioned or transported. Accordingly, there exists a need for an automatic basting system without the disadvantages as described above. The development of the present invention substantially departs from the conventional solutions and in doing so fulfills this need.